To his credit, Evandro Carvalho, the executive director of Boston’s Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, is candid about the challenges he has faced since taking on that job a little more than a year ago, in May 2024. “We have been through a year of resetting,” he told the Editorial Board in an interview.
The office was established as the chief agent of police reform in Boston after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer spurred a national movement for police accountability. It’s supposed to investigate citizen complaints and also oversee the Boston Police Department’s own internal affairs reviews.
To say the office has had a rocky start is an understatement. Will it ever live up to its promise? Only with strong leadership from Carvalho and even stronger leadership from Mayor Michelle Wu, who has had little to say about police accountability since winning office in November 2021.